An Ethiopian court Tuesday sentenced two Swedish journalists to 11 years in prison for allegedly supporting terrorism while officials in China handed down a nine-year prison sentence for a dissident online journalist, news reports said.

Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye were convicted in Ethiopia last week after being arrested in July in the Ogaden, a no-go region of Ethiopia adjacent to Somalia, during a gunfight between Ethiopian soldiers and rebels, CNN reported Ethiopian state media as announcing.

Prosecutors had argued that the journalists were supporters of the rebels – members of the Ogaden National Liberation Front – which the Ethiopian government declared a terrorist organisation in June.

The Swedish government, human rights organisations and press freedom groups maintain the journalists were simply doing their job, and were embedded with the rebels so they could report on the region and on the activities of a Swedish oil firm with interests there. Ethiopian troops have been accused of committing human rights abuses against ethnic Somalis in the Ogaden.

The pair was reportedly convicted on two counts: entering the country illegally and supporting terrorism.

Amnesty International said the journalists had been prosecuted for carrying out “legitimate work”.

IPI Executive Director Alison Bethel McKenzie said: “We are highly concerned at the apparent use of anti-terrorism laws to prosecute and convict two Swedish journalists who appear to have been doing nothing more than their job. We urge the Ethiopian authorities to re-evaluate the case immediately.”

Fredrec Alm, editor and vice-president at the Sweden-based Kontinental photo agency – for which Persson and Schibbye worked – warned, in a phone conversation with IPI, that 11 years in an Ethiopian prison could be a “death sentence” for the two men, and that they now face a difficult choice between appealing, in a process that could take up to two years, and asking to be pardoned – which would imply an admission of guilt. “It is absurd to say that they supported terrorism,” Alm told IPI, adding that Persson and Schibbye were “just doing their jobs as journalists.”

“The purpose of the verdict is to scare away journalists from the area,” concluded Alm.

Meanwhile in China, dissident journalist and writer Chen Wei was sentenced to nine years in prison for “inciting subversion of state power”, the BBC reported.

Chen had published essays online calling for freedom of speech and political reform.

He was one of hundreds of activists arrested earlier this year after online calls for protests that appeared to have been inspired by uprisings across the Arab world.

Wei reportedly told the court that he was not guilty and that “democracy will prevail in China”, the BBC said.

“Instead of heeding Mr. Wei’s calls for freedom of speech and political reform, the Chinese authorities have silenced him by sentencing him to nine years in prison after a closed-door, non-transparent trial,” Bethel McKenzie said. “We urge the Chinese authorities to acknowledge the fundamental right to free expression and a free media.”